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Wednesday, October 8, 2014

The Extraordinary Life

So throughout the six or so months since I've started to address same-sex attraction, an idea and belief has been brewing in my mind and I have now come to believe it as absolute eternal truth. The seed for this new life outlook began with Camille Fronk Olson's comments during her address at the 2014 North Star Conference about Satan desiring to sift us as wheat.

I believe that no Latter-day Saint is to live an ordinary life.

Experiencing sexual attraction to the same sex is definitely out of the ordinary, as are multiple other traits and characteristics. On the one hand, I feel that sometimes we "preach the pattern" over the pulpit, idealizing how life "should" be as Latter-day Saints. But the more I get to know people, the more I believe that we should shun the ordinary paradigm of how life should be and embrace the extra-ordinary within each of us.

I believe that our extra-ordinary traits and experiences, such as SSA in our case, was given to us as a gift and a calling to experience a Latter-day Saint life far different from the idealized romanticized perfect pattern. With my experiences and attractions, I have the opportunity to share beautiful insights into doctrine that most others in my ward will never have. As I listen to my fellow Saints, and fellowship them, I see how their life experiences shape their insights and beliefs and together both I and my fellow LDS friends experience improvement and growth through these interactions. Real community develops with open and honest dialogue.

One of my oldest and most wanted dreams growing up was to be "just like everyone else." I see now how foolish and dumb that desire was for my own individual well-being and how it limits my potential positive impact. There's too much I would lose individually and collectively if I ran away from that which makes me "different."